While the final curtain may have fallen on Broadway’s Tony Award–winning production of Anything Goes this July after more than 500 performances, the beloved show has found a new home at famed theater camp Stagedoor Manor in Loch Sheldrake, New York. In an interview, Joel Grey—who starred in the revival as Moonface Martin, the dimwitted yet darling criminal on the lam—chats with his Stagedoor counterpart, Ryan Fleer, about auditions, inspiration, and, naturally, “Friendship.” VF Dailylistened in—highlights from their chat:

Joel Grey:Whoa! Is this Moonface?

Ryan Fleer:Yes. Hi, Mr. Grey.

Grey:Are you giving them a rough time? Are you a bad gangster or a good gangster?

Fleer: I find the cross between them. He’s bad, but I make him a little good sometimes.

Grey:Where is he good?

Fleer: I find him good when he has brilliant moments, his sparks of inspiration. I make him good there, but when he wants to say rough stuff, I make him angry.

Grey:Which is funnier?

Fleer: I like being bad. I’ve never played a bad character, so I really like that.

VF Daily:Were you both drawn to playing this role when you heard that the show was coming back to your respective venues? Did you both want Moonface?

Fleer:At Stagedoor we don’t actually know what the show is ahead of time, but you can request the show we’re doing. I requested [Anything Goes]. It’s one of my favorite shows. I saw the revival and loved it. I was dying to play this role, and it was my last show here.

Grey: Did you audition for this [role]?

Fleer: Here, everyone has a plain audition. We sing 16 bars and we read a short, kind of a brainless scene. They want to see how we express ourselves. From there, they cast us in the shows, and we don’t know what the shows are. We can request parts, but it’s up to the casting committee to decide our fate.

Grey:I had a very different experience. I kept saying no when they wanted me to do it because I couldn’t see the way that I could be right for that part of some dopey gangster. It has happened to me so many times in my career—whenever I’ve said no, it’s one of the best things I ever do.

Fleer:How did you process playing Moonface? How did you attack the role?

Grey: I just took a bite out of the manuscript and chewed it up. No, I didn’t. I tried to find the truth of what it is that Moonface doesn’t have and wants. He’s the only one who’s rudderless. Everybody else has somebody.

Did either of you look to any real gangsters for inspiration?

Grey:No, because for me, he’s actually a clown gangster. He lives in his own world. He’s very sharp, but he’s not bright.

Fleer:I view him as the typical Broadway stock-character gangster. He’s not really intimidating, he’s not scary, and he’s not the brightest man. He tries to have brilliant moments, but sometimes he’s not the best.

Grey:What do you do with “Bluebird”?

Fleer:For “Bluebird” I have specific choreography. It’s a comic, funny song. I overdo it. I want to make sure that the humor is getting out there. Yesterday was the first time the cast heard me do the song, and they were dying in the wings laughing. I was hamming it up.

Grey: Tell me what you look like in your costume.

Fleer: I have a black, priest-like shirt, black pants, and a gray coat. When I’m the Chinese, I have a really, really tight Chinese outfit with really, really short pants to make it funny because the girl playing the Chinese is really short.

What was your favorite musical number in the play, Mr. Grey? And what’s yours, Ryan, for Moonface?

Fleer: My favorite Moonie number is “Bluebird.” I think it’s a moment in the show when he can be himself, when he can tell the truth, when he can sing a really, really funny song.

Grey: My favorite number was “Friendship” because I got to inhabit the stage with Sutton Foster and we had so much fun. It was so fresh every night. We trusted each other to let it flow in a different way every time, so that was always thrilling.

Fleer: I love that number. In our version it’s actually a trio.

Have you ever seen any shows at Stagedoor, Mr. Grey?

Grey: No, I haven’t. I’d love to. I love that kind of theater—where everybody just gets together and figures it out without all the trappings of Broadway.

Fleer:I love this camp. I go every summer because I’m drawn to it so much. Everyone here has so much excitement and energy to strive for the best they can do here. We’re all focusing on our shows day and night. We don’t really care about the outside world when we’re here. Everyone is here for the same purpose: they want to do theater.